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I agree - i wasn't saying the what makes it HD was the aspect ratio- what makes it HD is horizontal resolution.

Now, we don't know what the origirnal source is, but the native signal coming in is 1080i (unless my TV is getting it wrong). So what we're seeing is actually squeezed picture - so when you crop it you'll get the full signal. On SD channels it's the other way around - cropping a letterboxed 480i signal to full screen blows it up beyond its native scaling, and looks crappy.

I don't know why this channel seems to be unique when it comes to this - maybe they just haven't worked out the kinks yet.

I have my D* box scaling everything to 1080I. so it may be just the way you set the screen set in your options. My screen tells me it is set to 1080i, even if I am watching a 480I broadcast, on D*. My other option would be to import it as a 480I, 480P, or 1080I, and let the tv scale it up to 1080I, but, it seems to affect how I see the picture, and I am unable to zoom the picture properly.

I don't see a squeezed picture, but if I stretched it to fill the screen, then it would crop the sides. However, if I zoom it. the 16X9 picture fills out my screen without cropping or distorting the picture. This is a format option on the Sony TV, not on the D* box.

1. My Panny won't zoom HD connected via HDMI or Component, so I'm stuck with window-box around all four sides.

2. That is the most annoying, biggest, most obnoxious bug.

oh, and 3. New Webisodes still won't atone for cancelling Farscape!

Bummer! Time for a new tv, anyways, last years models are outdated already.

Sorry, I can't help about Farscape. I'm ticked that they even removed SG1, and then replaced it with Painkiller Jane and Flash Gordon. How are there ratings compared to SGI or Farscapr? They will probably replace BSG with another detective show, where the detective can mysteriously change his appearance. The title will probably be called "The Chameleon".

I Now, we don't know what the origirnal source is, but the native signal coming in is 1080i (unless my TV is getting it wrong). So what we're seeing is actually squeezed picture - so when you crop it you'll get the full signal. On SD channels it's the other way around - cropping a letterboxed 480i signal to full screen blows it up beyond its native scaling, and looks crappy..

Upon further reflection, they are probably just taking their 480I signal, and airing in on the 1080I bandwidth. So, the signal may be HD, but the picture is still SD, because they didn't improve the resolution.

Is Mpeg compression done by the station, or by D*? I always thought it would be D*.

I just don't get this. If they broadcast in pillars then everyone can get what they want, but if they stretch then there's no way for me to unstretch if I want pillars. The conclusion seems obvious.

I 100% agree! I imagine the main issue is people who like stretched content are also one's who don't understand their television set enough to setup the stretchovision on it, so they want to impose their taste on the rest of us.

It does appear the the source of the SD upconvert is at the head end back @ SciFi.com. Maybe SciFi is just waiting for the flux capacitor to show up so that they can finally turn on real TV. At least DIRECTV has done their part and now we can all scream at those guys from the spaced out channel. .

Beastmaster is in letterbox, which would seem to indicate it's an HD show--strange they aren't showing it in HD. (At least they're not showing it in stretch-o-vision. TNT/History Channel/TBS, are you paying attention?)

BTW, could they make their on-screen logo (with the Ghost Hunters promo) any more conspicuous?

It's not that I'm ungrateful; I wanted SciFi in HD very badly but so far it's letterbox as well as pillar box. I think that I will keep the SD channel around for a while.

Upon further reflection, they are probably just taking their 480I signal, and airing in on the 1080I bandwidth. So, the signal may be HD, but the picture is still SD, because they didn't improve the resolution.

Is Mpeg compression done by the station, or by D*? I always thought it would be D*.

I think you're right - otherwise the 4:3 commercials would be pillarboxed inside the already letterboxed window. But on the other hand, there is still some sort of upcoversion going on somewhere - probably by D* before they send it out. We could be getting full screen at full rez, just that part of that picture consists of the borders.

Still, when I zoom in, it does look like the real thing - if I zoom in on the SD channel - even if my box is converting to 10801, it just doesn't look as good. That tells me that on the HD channel, the information is in there somewhere.